Pressing the black and white conversion button is never enough

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

Sometimes I see black and white photos that were clearly made by pressing the black and white conversion button. Unfortunately, that photo is also often placed next to a colour version with that dreaded question: which one is better?

Converting a colour photo to black and white is a very personal choice. You have to make that choice as a photographer, rather than leaving it to your followers on social media or your friends. Don't be uncertain about whether you want black and white or not. Make the choice.

Once you have chosen black and white, don't just press the black and white conversion button. Usually, this simply removes the colours from the photo, nothing more and nothing less. That almost always results in an uninspired photo.

If you want to convert a photo to black and white, do it with plenty of care. What you should especially do is play with the colour channels in your photo editing programme. Using colours for black and white sounds strange, but it gives you an incredible number of options.

As an example, I chose a field of poppies. In colour, this provides a nice contrast between green and red. The colour version of the photo is otherwise not particularly interesting. It is a field of poppies, nothing more and nothing less. Have a look.

Maybe black and white is a better choice. That way, you might be able to make something more appealing from that not very exciting colour photo.

For this, I converted the photo to black and white in Lightroom Classic. With the black and white conversion button, because that is what it is for. However, the result is very strange. The poppies are basically no longer visible. Both green and red have almost the same shade of grey in black and white.

That should be possible to improve, because red and green differ quite a lot in colour. For this, I opened the black and white panel in Lightroom Classic and made the red and orange tones lighter. At the same time, I made the green and yellow tones darker.

I also adjusted the brightness of the blue tones. They were made darker, increasing the contrast with the white clouds. Compare this result with the previous black and white conversion. I think you will find the difference very noticeable.

This shows that you can't just quickly do a black and white conversion. You have to give it some attention and play with the colour channels to achieve the best result. Once you see the result, you can simply forget about the colour version. This is infinitely better and more interesting. At least, that is my opinion.

How do you make your black and white photos? Do you also work with colour channels, or have you never used them? If so, give it a try.

You might also like

1 comment

Have your say